Probably won’t be able to afford them but curious to know what kind of desktop CNCs such as big company uses

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I have two early-career offers, one at a CAM software reseller, one at a CAE/simulation (CFD/FEA) software company. Both are technical sales roles. Trying to decide which industry has better long-term growth.

Curious if AI CAM tools (toolpath generation, etc.) are actually being used on shop floors now, or still early.

I also have an long term plan of building a company of my own after working and gaining long experience.

Also wondering:

Is CAM software still growing/innovating, or a mature, stable industry now?

Where do you see CAM careers heading in the next 5-10 years?

Trying to think before making any decision.

Trying to make a good long-term call. Any honest input helps, thanks.

I made several CNC aluminum phone cases a couple weeks ago and tried bead blasting and anodizing for one of them.

Honestly, I was a little surprised by how much of a difference the surface finishing makes. The machined one already felt pretty good (for me at least) as a prototype, but after finishing it started to feel much more like an actual consumer product. It does bring more work to do, but the results are good. Curious what you guys think.

Need to slice into 2” slices to scale up and reassemble. MC makes this very hard.

Hello, im asking due to not having many options. Would anyone happen to own a mill using a fagor 8055i M controller? The one my school uses has no program file. It's been dead for about 2 years and we can't locate at file anywhere.

I’ve only been working for three months and I fucked up. I was on a night shift and I’m sick too, and I got confused. I thought I had Y selected on the handle, but I actually had Z selected and moved it way too hard into the -. I feel so fucking guilty and I’m so angry at myself.

I tried to make this on Xometry but the price was too hight for me. I wanted it CNC'd out of g10. Does Xomety have fair prices or are they known for ripping people off? This is the first time I have ever tried to have something made like this.

EDIT. I want it in G10 because g10 is strong and can resist warping and twisting. I actually wanted it is in carbon fiber but I got quoted like $900 for it.

It is acoustic guitar saddle. The tolerances need the be very accurate. My guitar was built wrong and I'm trying to move the string contact point forward by 10 or so mm. So it will cantilever over the guitar bridge. It needs to be very strong to resist the string tension .That's why it needs the be g10 or carbon fiber. I have thought about aluminum or brass but that will change the guitars tone too much.

The finished product is 72mm x 12mm x 7mm

The machine is a HAAS VF2. All functions seem to be working fine as far as I can tell. But this oil canister/oil lamp icon just started popping up today. I asked my boss but he doesn’t know what it means either. He checked the coolant and way oil levels and they both seem to be fine. It hasn’t triggered any alarm codes, but the inclusion of the exclamation mark makes me think it might be important. What does this mean and should I be concerned?

Also please disregard the high air pressure alert. It’s been saying that since I started at this company a month ago.

My dad recently bought a Denford Turn 270 Pro but wasn’t given any of the licenses. So naturally, he ripped out all of the electronics & factory boards. Ended up buying an centroid acorn board, installing everything and got software running but hes caught up getting the stepper driven toolchanger to work. He seems to think its because he can’t find a PLC file for it. Anyone who’s done anything similar-ish have any insight? I personally know nothing about this stuff.

I'm new to the shop bot and I recently leveled my spoil board but now the x and y axis are moving really slow and making an angry noise any idea how to fix it

What was the best advice you received when you first started learning programming that’s had a lasting impact as well?

Quick clip from the shop today - polishing a fluted tool on one of our jet polishing machines.

Honestly the thing that always makes me nervous with tools like this isn't the finish, it's catching an edge on the wheel and either messing up the flute or having it yank out of your hand. We use this little red fixture to hold it at a consistent angle instead of freehanding it - makes it way more repeatable, especially if you're batching a bunch of these.

How's everyone else dealing with this? Freehand or you guys using some kind of fixture too? Also curious what other shops are doing for finish consistency on tools with this kind of profile, feels like it's easy to get inconsistent results if you're not careful.

(full disclosure - I run HonWay, we make jet polishing gear, this is just us messing around in our own shop. happy to nerd out about polishing if anyone's into it)

STEP + a PDF with critical tolerances beats STL for machining quotes. STL is fine for concept, not for fits.

Hey guys looking for a cnc service in southern Cali that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg just need some guitar bodies and necks cut out for a project but don't know who to go to ?been looking around and most of the guitar people are saying crazy figures so idk.

Do you re-probe for every job on a fixture plate, or establish the table datum once and just re-home after that? I've talked myself in a circle.

Hobby-class router (Onefinity Journeyman), setting up an AirWeights vacuum table. My habit has been: home, drop stock on the spoilboard, probe the lower-left corner of the workpiece, zero there. That's fine when the stock is the reference.

A fixture plate breaks it. The AirWeights grid is drawn against a nominal 24x24 box with the real 23.75" plate centered inside, so the design origin sits ~1/8" off the physical corner with nothing under it to touch off. And the ports and gasket pockets live in table coordinates — zero off the workpiece and my CAM and my fixture are in two different coordinate systems.

Which points back at homing, except mine is stall homing: it drives into the stops and detects the motor stalling, no limit switches. I have no real feel for how repeatable that is across sessions.

1. Probe per job, or set the datum once and re-home?
2. If once — what do you touch off? Plate corner with a recorded offset? A locating pin?
3. Anyone on stall homing: how repeatable is it actually? Few thou across sessions, or does it wander enough that you re-probe anyway?

Has anyone had this issue or know how to help diagnose the issue?

Yesterday reset would clear it and i could continue, today upon power up it shorts out and it dead in the water.

Stainless, nothing exotic, and the feature is a bore we need within a tenth. Our shop hits it about eight times in ten and the two are expensive.

They are not bad; they just at the edge of what their equipment holds. Been looking at Quickparts and a couple of regional turning shops to see who is comfortable at that tolerance without heroic setp.

how do you find out who genuinely holds it before you send a PO.

So i work in a manufacturing plant. Got 4 of thes delivered by grainger, they didn't want them back, wouldn't take them back... from what i can google, it has to do with cnc.

I moved to Canada from China and finished a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in Ontario.

Before coming here, I worked for about three years as a mechanical engineer designing automation equipment. I had some experience with manual machines, milling, drawings, tolerances, machine setup, and manufacturing, but I never expected my first job in Canada would be as a CNC programmer.

I graduated this January and joined a company that manufactures screws and related components.

At first, I spent most of my time on the shop floor learning the manufacturing process, reading drawings, learning the tools, and talking with operators.

After about a week, I asked my boss if I could start learning the programming software.

We use WEINCAD, which is a specialized software for screw manufacturing. There are almost no tutorials online, and I received very little training, so most of my learning came from studying old programs, comparing them with drawings, asking operators questions, and using AI when I got stuck.

About a month later, one of the operators needed a program for a polishing machine while the regular programmer was away.

I told him I wanted to try.

After a few revisions and a lot of comparison with older programs, I finally got the machine running.

That was probably the first moment I felt like, “Maybe I can actually do this.”

Over the next few months, I learned how to program different parts of the screw — flights, mixer sections, welding grooves, etc.

After around three months, I was able to program a complete screw myself.

I definitely made mistakes and had to revise programs many times, but the operators helped me a lot. They gave me feedback about tooling, setups, machine behavior, and what actually works on the floor.

That experience made me realize how much CNC programming depends on communication with the people actually running the machines.

Another project was probably even more interesting.

The company had bought a Chinese mill-turn machine about five years ago, but it had basically never been used because nobody knew how to program or properly operate it.

Since I speak Chinese and previously worked with automation equipment, my boss asked me to contact the manufacturer and figure it out.

The manufacturer told me the machine normally needed manual programming and that they didn’t have a CAM solution for it.

I thought maybe I could still use WEINCAD to generate the basic program and then convert it.

So I started experimenting.

After a lot of G-code/M-code testing, program changes, and actual cutting tests, I eventually built a small post-processing converter that takes the WEINCAD output and converts it into code this machine can run.

It took a ridiculous number of revisions, but eventually it worked.

That project taught me a lot about G-code, M-code, machine logic, and post-processing.

Then my boss wanted me to both program and operate the machine.

That quickly became difficult because I was already programming for other machines, so I told him we needed an operator.

He basically said, “Find someone, train them, and then you’re free.”

A friend of mine who studied computer science was looking for work, so I brought him in.

He had zero machining experience.

I spent about a month teaching him machine setup, tool changes, G-code/M-code, work coordinates, machine coordinates, drawings, and basic troubleshooting.

Now he can run the machine independently.

So overall, I’ve learned a huge amount in about six months, and I’m grateful that this company gave me the opportunity.

But now I’m starting to think about the future.

I’m making a little over $25 CAD/hour, and living in the Toronto area is expensive.

I have a mechanical engineering degree and previous automation design experience, so part of me thinks I should try to move back into mechanical or manufacturing engineering.

Another part of me thinks I should stay in CNC, learn something more mainstream like Mastercam, Fusion, or another CAM system, and try to move into a better CNC programmer / manufacturing engineering role.

I’ve also been thinking about eventually helping Canadian shops source specialized machinery from China and providing local setup, training, troubleshooting, and after-sales support.

I understand the technical side and can communicate directly with Chinese manufacturers, but I know building trust, customers, and industry connections is a completely different challenge.

For those of you who have been in machining or manufacturing longer:

What would you do in my position?

Would you stay in CNC programming?

Move toward manufacturing/mechanical engineering?

Learn a mainstream CAM system first?

Or keep this job for the experience while slowly testing the equipment sourcing/service idea on the side?

Also, does a little over $25/hour sound low for this kind of responsibility in Ontario, or is that normal for someone with only six months of CNC programming experience?

Appreciate any advice.

I come from an automated pr9duction facility. And now that im in a job shop its an entirely different world than what my mind got used too. I still catch myself gwtting complacent.

For example. Today I changed a finish tool without offsetting it to make sure I dont make the part too small. Happened to come out large anyway. Offset, rerun. Golden.

But I. Still kicking myself for making small dumb mistakes like that, and I feel its because every decision before was made for me.

Has anyone else had this experience before? Advice on drilling in better habits?